SILAS BOWMAN COBB

BY THOMAS W. GOODSPEED

Silas B. Cobb was one of the picturesque figures of Chicago for nearly seventy years. He arrived in what was so insignificant a hamlet as to be hardly worthy to be called a settlement, among the earliest comers and lived to see it grow into the inland metropolis of the nation, with a population of nearly two millions. He came without education in either books or business, without a penny in his pocket, and without any apparent prospects, and within a few years became a leading capitalist and, ultimately, one of the wealthiest men in the city. Even down to old age he was noticeable for the briskness of his walk, and it was a point with him, well understood among his acquaintances, to allow no one to pass him on the street.

Mr. Cobb was born in Montpelier, the capital of Vermont, January 23, 1812, when that now thriving little city was a small village of little more than a thousand people. It was a wonderful boy's country, and no doubt this alert, vigorous, enterprising boy got his share of youthful enjoyment out of it; but it must have been done by main strength, for his was not a pampered youth. The father, Silas Cobb, was apparently a not altogether unprosperous business man. In the records of Montpelier it is said that in 1806, six years before the birth of Silas B., the father established "an extensive tannery." About 1820 Goss and Cobb built a paper-mill which they "carried on a long time." It was burned in 1828 with a loss of $4,000, but was rebuilt by the two partners and later sold. These activities would seem to place the elder Cobb among the leading business men of the village, but they did not result in privileges for his children. There was a large family of these, and Silas B. was the youngest. The family was augmented still further when the father married a second wife with children of her own. may well be that all these children kept the family poor. What is certain is that young Silas had next to no educational advantages and early in life was bound out as an apprentice to a shoemaker. He seems to have wished to learn a trade, but not that of making boots and shoes. He was of too active a temperament to sit on a shoemaker's bench all day, and soon found a way to break away from this

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sedentary occupation and returned home. He was not welcomed there and his father again apprenticed him, against his will, to a mason. He probably concluded that there was slight prospect of success for a mason in the Vermont of that day and, in some way, released himself from his apprenticeship and again returned home. It is to be inferred that his father now washed his hands of his youngest son and gave him to understand that he was at liberty to carve out his fortunes in his own way. Thus encouraged to choose for himself, he apprenticed himself to a harness-maker and entered with interest on the learning of that trade. He was now seventeen years old and worked faithfully and with daily increasing facility in an employment which he liked. At the end of a year, however, his master sold out his business, and with it the services of his apprentice. The purchaser claimed the apprentice as a part of the transaction. It was then that young Cobb showed the independence and acumen that go far to explain his later success. He was a mere boy, but he said at once to the new owner: "In this case the nigger don't go with the plantation," and insisted that if he continued with him it must be for the payment of satisfactory wages. It is evident that he had so far mastered the trade that his services were valuable, for he carried his point and continued in the same shop as a paid apprentice. Filling out the period of his apprenticeship and becoming master of his trade and of himself, he continued to work as a journeyman harness-maker in Montpelier, South Hardwick, and other places. Wages must have been very small. Mr. Cobb was not a money spender, yet when he reached the age of twenty-one his accumulations reached the sum of only sixty dollars.

His father and Oliver Goss had sold their paper-mill and Mr. Goss had been west and invested in lands, and, returning to Montpelier, had awakened such an interest in that new world just opening to settlement that a company of adventurers was preparing to accompany him in a migration to the prairies of Illinois. It was, perhaps, in this very year, 1833, that the movement from the middle and eastern states to the new west began to assume real magnitude. What caused this movement is an interesting question. Perhaps the greatest cause of all was the powerful appeal of the boundless, fertile fields of a new world to the imagination of the adventurous. It was their country, unoccupied, inviting settlement, and with unknown possibilities of material success. Indiana and Illinois had recently been admitted to the Union. The northern sections were without white inhabitants and invited pioneer settlers. The Black Hawk War had, in 1832, opened the northern half

of Illinois to safe and unrestricted settlement. Vague rumors about a hamlet called Chicago, which had a promise of possible future development, appealed with increasing power to adventurous young men.

When, therefore, his father's old partner returned from his exploring expedition in Illinois with glowing accounts of the country and of the new settlement near the foot of Lake Michigan and began to gather a company to make their homes on the lands he had selected forty miles southwest of Chicago, young Cobb caught fire and determined to make his way to this new world. But it was not the fertile prairies that attracted him. He was not a farmer, but a harness-maker, and his eye was fixed on the village by the lake, where he believed there might be a promising opening for a man of his calling. He learned that Chicago was on the main line of travel by which immigrants entered the new state, that it was the place where they refitted for their farther progress, and was already a center of trade for the surrounding country. It ought to be a good place for a man who was master of an industry so essential to such a town and country as harness-making. To Chicago, therefore, he determined to go. His father strongly opposed his purpose; but he was now of age, his own master, making his own way, and he would not be dissuaded from carrying out his new plan. His father refused to assist him, and sixty dollars was the total amount of his savings. There was no time to earn more, as Mr. Goss and his company were ready to start. With the recklessness of youth he decided to enter on this "hazard of new fortunes" and undertake to make his way through the thousand miles of travel and all the difficulties of starting life in a strange place with this pitifully inadequate capital.

The company must have started early in April. They made their way first to Albany. Apparently they were traveling by wagon, being farmers who would need horses and wagons in their new home. At Albany young Cobb left them and went by boat on the Erie Canal to Buffalo. On the way some thief stole part of his money, and when he applied for passage to Chicago on a lake boat he had only seven dollars in his pocket. He made known his circumstances to the captain of the schooner "Atlanta," who finally agreed to take him to Chicago as a deck passenger if he would board himself and, after purchasing necessary food, turn over for his passage all the money he had left. Thereupon he bought a small ham, six loaves of bread, and secured a bedtick which he filled with shavings and, thus provided for the voyage, turned over every penny he had left, being four dollars, to the captain. It is probable that he also engaged to make himself useful about the ship